Winter Wheels

[DavidHiers]

I'm looking to upgrade my wheels to something that can better handle the drive up to the trailhead in winter. My corolla can follow the snow plows anywhere, but that's all I can ask of Sweet Bessie.

 

While I don't expect to crawl over a downed tree or some monstrous V16 cast down by Tepeyollotl, I would like to get enough clearance and flotation to handle most of the approach roads in winter.

 

What rigs are you all driving out there?

 

Thanks in advance...

 

[pink]

how about a tacoma with winch.

[DavidHiers]

That's pretty high on the current list, for sure...

 

Not wanting to send all the torque to the one tire that's on the icy patch, I'm looking for some traction control. In the old days, you'd put lockers all around, but now I guess they've got active systems. I'm pretty sure the tacoma has that stuff.

[billcoe]

Hi David:

 

If I needed the offroading, Toyota mini truck with a winch is the #1 choice. I've seen those things go no man nor beast should be.

 

The Honda CR-V has electronic stability control and full time 4 wheel drive, and is a damn sight more comfortable on those Yosemite road trips too.

[Cobra_Commander]

The tacoma is part time w/ auto locking hubs these days. The last manual lockers were on the 98. The trd package will give you a locking rear diff and some bilsteins (but they're not as burly as the retail bilsteins). I don't know anything about the new tacos though, apart from the fact they look like a pug. They do not have a traction control system as far as I know. They are still just a truck in the end.

 

"Traction control" is a relative term too. The subarus basically just a have a limited slip setup that they way over-market to make it look like some nuclear scientists are down there deciding where to send the power at any given second.

 

I consider the Ghost River Wilderness in Alberta to be my limit for ugly winter climbing approaches, and you see Subaru Legacies plowing through the creeks occasionally, but usually driven by some psycho canadians. The high clearance trucks definitely pay off for plowing through drifts, but often just get you more stuck, further in.

[marylou]

Xterra.

[genepires]

big old pickup with a snow mobile in back?

[cj001f]

Anything with a shovel

[Couloir]

FJ Cruiser

[catbirdseat]

FJ Cruiser

Please refer to the Tea Partay thread.

[Freeman]

This isn't spam, but I've got a really nice Jeep Grand Cherokee for sale. Located in Wenatchee - new all seasons plus chains if you need them (I've only used them once and that was to pull a friends Subie out of a ditch). It has served me very well.

[JayB]

If you really need clearance and will be driving rough, remote roads in winter then I'd go with the Tacoma/Tundra/Cruiser and get real chains for all four wheels, a tow strap, shovel, some static rope, and a couple of come-alongs.

 

If you'll do virtually all of your winter driving on paved or gravel roads, then a Subaru outfitted with snow tires would be a much better choice in terms of control/handling/traction/etc.

 

I can think of a few times when having clearance was critical - like the time when a freak storm rolled in when I was way, way out there on a logging road when a freak storm rolled in...but I think there's some truth to the notion that extra 4WD capacity can get yourself in situations that you would have avoided altogether with a wagon or sedan.

[DavidHiers]

I hear you guys on the getting stuck farther and deeper! While I try to portray off my road-wussiness as prudence and caution, that veneer is pretty darned thin

 

 

[DavidHiers]

FJ Cruiser

Please refer to the Tea Partay thread.

 

 

Funny!

[JayB]

I hear you guys on the getting stuck farther and deeper! While I try to portray off my road-wussiness as prudence and caution, that veneer is pretty darned thin

 

 

Speaking of veneers, I was driving on a logging road a few years ago on what seemed like compact snow and ice - which it was on the main road. On the spur-road I turned onto, the firm surface hadn't been created by traffic, but by a fairly significant freeze-thaw event covered by 1/2" of old compact snow. Things went pretty well for the first couple of hundred yards, at which point I drove over a slight depression, heard a creaking sound, and suddenly found myself sunk up to my headlights in granular sugar-snow capped off by the aformentioned ice crust.

 

"No problem. I've got the chains, the shovel, the rope, the chains, the come-alongs, etc in the back. This will suck but I'll get out for sure." Long story short, due to some un-anounced borrowing on my buddy's part, and no small measure of stupidity on my own, I found that all I had to extract myself with were a leatherman, a can of coke, a plastic milk-jug, and an aluminum baseball bat. I was about 20 miles from the nearest paved road, I was on a sick-day and would have to account for my presence in the mountains a long way from home while sick, had told no one of my plans, was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and about 1/2 hour after I got stuck a storm hit and it stated snowing about an inch per hour.

 

After 8 or so hours of making water by melting snow by filling the coke can with snow and placing it in the engine compartment when I had the engine running, breaking the ice with a baseball bat, then digging out the sugar snow with the milk-jug scoop I made, and cutting down every tree and branch I could get my hands on and making a branch-and-frond traction path back to the main logging road, I did some chainless rally/momentum-preservation style driving through 8-14 inches of snow while peering through a 6-inch gap in the fog on the windshield, and made it back to the main road with only minor body damage and an overworked clutch.

 

From the time I realized that I was in the middle of something like the real-life equivalent of a rejected McGyver script until I saw the gate marking the start of the pavement, I wasn't sure I'd make it back to the road. My main concern was never survival, but I was plagued by alternating visions having to leave my truck behind for legions of heavily armed ATV or snow-mobile mounted mega-tweakers to use for target-practice/parts/outhouse-duty and/or losing my job.

 

Get home, chain and shovel etc borrowing buddy rolls in and says, "Hey - anything interesting happen today?" I had been about 5-minutes away from abandoning my truck and jogging out before I got stuck, and left a note outlining my plan taped to the steering wheel. I kept the note on the fridge for about a year in the hopes that viewing it daily might help insure that such episodes were somewhat less common in the future.

[dbb]

nice story Jay!

 

Trucks are not great winter driving vehicles. they're not good summer driving vehicles either (comfort, mpg). What they are good at is rough HC roads and breaking trail through 1-3' of fresh snow with chains on all wheels and weight in the back. If you'll be doing enough of those to make it worth it (Ghost River access, Hyalite later season, etc) then go with the truck. However, you can do some burly stuff in subarus with patience and time. They'll also drive better to the ski area.

[Couloir]

FJ Cruiser

Please refer to the Tea Partay thread.

 

 

 

BTW: Great story Jay!

[beecher]

yeah, there's lots of subarus around and you can score one used pretty cheap. decent all around traction, comfort, economy, reliability. throw on some studded tires & go for it.

flotation is bs, snow tires are actually more on the tall and narrow end of the spectrum. you just need enough clearance that you won't high center on crust after a melt-freeze (as long as you're not the lowest ride out there you'll be fine)